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I came across this William James quote a while ago. I don't mean to sound trite or cliché in saying that it changed my life, but the truth is that it did. I have it in a little frame in my office and whenever I start feeling discouraged or stuck or uninspired, I look at [...]

Perfection—if defined as anything other than being perfectly me—is not a state of being to which I aspire. I have enough to think about without having to conform to some ideal of perfection, which I'm quite certain would not allow for the dishes in my sink or the ripped out knees in my favorite pair [...]

Second Saturday dinners here in the Humble Neighborhood went on hiatus during the cold winter months, but now that the days are warm, sunny and getting longer, I'm thinking about bringing them back. Just for the summer–June through September. Any takers? New to the Humble Neighborhood? Here's the deal: I cook. You come and eat–and [...]

I’ve spent the last several months discovering root vegetables. For whatever reasons, I never ventured much beyond potatoes, carrots, onions and the occasional yam. Last spring I stumbled upon parsnips and well, yum! Why had I never tried them before?! Who knows? Thus began my foray into the Wonderful World of Root Vegetables. The latest [...]

Cooking I love. Cleaning up, not so much. My neat and orderly Virgo nature goes on vacation when I’m in the kitchen zealously concocting this, that or the other thing. A pinch of this, a dash of that and the next thing I know my inner Tasmanian devil has unleashed herself in a whirlwind of [...]

Happy accidents or complete disasters, mistakes are an essential part of the learning process. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Case in point… The first time I made dinner for a boy was a disaster. Food this bad should be outlawed. Seriously. But there I was—17 and feeling pretty cocky about my mad [...]

    You’ve heard the lament—or maybe you’ve even uttered it yourself, “Why is everything that’s good so bad for you?” So often when we talk about eating a healthy diet, we’re thinking about all the things we can’t have…we feel restricted, denied, deprived. In this way, we set ourselves up and make things harder [...]